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| Your typical Foreign Relations Committee hearing when chaired by Rand Paul |
So two people who
want to be President of the United States Kentucky
delivered an exceptional rhetorical falcon punch to the Democrat
until-recently-Secretary of State regarding her questionable leadership over
the embassy in Benghazi . Realistically,
it was more of a Dragon Ball Z-style mega punch by Senator Paul through the
body of ex-Secretary Clinton.
“Had I been president at the time, and I found that you did
not read the cables from Benghazi ,
you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you
of your post.”
Ouch! The standard operating procedure is to
offer one some ice for that burn.
However, ex-Secretary Clinton should be content with procuring some ice
either through her health care benefits as a federal employee or she could even
settle for ObamaCare as tirelessly campaigned for by her former boss’
administration.
At this moment in time I feel it quite appropriate to make
the case that a Paul presidency would take great strides in divorcing the
ill-begotten marriage between government dollars and private sector health care
which is responsible for driving the prices of health insurance and health care
sky high. Dr. Paul was even instrumental
in establishing eye clinics in Kentucky
that catered to patients without medical insurance. Furthermore, Dr. Paul subscribes to Austrian
economic theory, a school of economics whose leading thinkers have been
providing ideas for privatizing health care completely and in a way that makes
care and insurance easily affordable.
(See Mises.org and search
“health care” because I’m too lazy to explain myself when others have already
done it so well for me.)
Returning to the wrestling-style smack down of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee hearing, it’s beyond redundant to state that
Senator Paul thought Secretary Clinton handled the Libya
situation poorly. Defenders of Secretary
Clinton may criticize Senator Paul for being overly critical or even for being
partisan. However, there is nothing partisan about Senator Paul’s views on foreign policy,
including Libya September 21, 2012 .
“We
gave money [to] dictators, from Saddam Hussein—who was once our ally receiving
billions of dollars—to the Mujahedeen who were radical jihadists, but at the
time we didn’t mind if you were a radical jihadist if you were our radical jihadist, because they were
opposing the Soviet Union . But the Mujahedeen eventually became the
Taliban who are now our enemies.
“According
to [scholars] Corey and Ryan, the
world’s worst dictators have received $105 billion under the guise of official
developmental assistance. Instead of
helping the poor, the assistance is aiding the ability of the dictators to
remain in power. In fact, it keeps them
in power long enough that it enflames the populace that we end up having to...
[go back] because of war.
“Why
is there such a widespread anti-Americanism?
Because we propped up and gave money to so many despots, to so many
dictators… Why are we seeing people
burning the American flag? Why are we
seeing such great unrest in 30 different countries? Because our foreign aid and our military aid
has propped up dictators who become over decades despotic, autocratic, who
torture their people, prevent freedom from occurring, and then there’s a
backlash [against us].
The particular context of this speech was cutting foreign
aid to Pakistan ,
Egypt , and Libya . Like
his father, retired Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Paul is ideologically opposed
to foreign aid just as the founding fathers were. His use of these three unstable countries as
a gateway to cutting foreign aid is particularly clever, in my opinion at
least. The reasons he gave for cutting
foreign aid to these countries essentially boils down to the following: the
government of Pakistan has only made half-assed efforts to a half-assed
approach in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan, extremism and civil
strife are rampant in Egypt, extremists in post-war Libya killed American
diplomats without ever being held to account for it, and American intervention
in foreign affairs—especially in middle eastern countries torn by civil war and
civil strife—only breeds hatred and ill will against America and Americans
(hence the angry mob murdering the diplomats in Libya).
Had Senator Paul (or
his father) been President, not a dime of American government money would
have gone to the extremists infiltrating these governments, there would have
been no Americans killed in Libya because there would have been no American
presence there, and there would have been no incident over which to relieve
Secretary Clinton. The sad irony is that
leftists are going to dislike Senator
Paul even more now that “he was mean” to Hillary Clinton, even though
Paul’s view that America shouldn’t police the world or tell other countries
what to do is sharply in contrast to Clinton’s view yet very much in line with
the left’s views of a humble foreign policy.
Oh well, the left’s hypocrisy
doesn’t make Rand any less cool.
The best part for me
in witnessing all of this is knowing that Senator Rand Paul will run for
President in 2016. This is
especially sweet because Hillary wants to run as well—it’s no secret she’s
wanted to be President for a long time—and the combined embarrassment from the leadership
failure in the “Benghazigate” scandal with Senator Paul’s grilling only serves
to shatter Clinton’s dreams of being POTUS while solidifying Paul’s
foundation. Because I’m currently
killing downtime on a military base in the middle of nowhere, I will now
entertain myself by applying Senator Paul’s awesome burn to the following film
scenarios:
Star Wars: Had I
been king of Alderaan and found out you ignored the beacon signals about the
Death Star, I would have relieved you of your post.
The Lord of the Rings:
Had I been Lord Elrond and found out you ignored the mystical signs that the
Nazgul were hunting Frodo, I would have relieved you of your post.
Star Wars again:
Had I been a general and found out you ignored the message signals informing us
that the Empire was going to attack the rebel base on Hoth, I would have
relieved you of your post.
Harry Potter: Had
I been head of the Order of the Phoenix
and found out you, as headmistress of Hogwarts, ignored the owl letters
regarding death eaters onto the castle grounds, I would have relieved you of
your post.
Star Wars yet again:
Had I been Admiral Ackbar and found out it was a trap, I would have relieved
you of your post.
Full Metal Jacket:
had I found out you were not under sniper fire in Vietnam
nor in Bosnia/Kosovo, I would have relieved you of your post.
Star Trek the Next
Generation: Had I been head of the galactic federation and found out you
ignored that giant Borg cube that flew by the Enterprise ,
kidnapped Captain Picard and turned him into a cyborg, I would have relieved
you of your post as Number One.
The Sandlot: Had
I been your father and found out you lost the Babe Ruth autograph ball in the
Beast’s yard, I would have relieved you of your post.
Star Wars in real
life: Had I been Steven Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola and found out you
were going to make prequels to the Star Wars Trilogy, I would have relieved you
of your post.
Perhaps the only thing sweeter than seeing Senator Paul
destroying Democrats would be witnessing him spearheading the effort to purge the neocons from Republican Party
leadership. Honestly, with friends like the
“conservatives” who went out of their way to bring down Ron Paul’s candidacy,
who needs enemies?
* * *
USMC photo 090214-M-4150N-112 is in the public domain. Rand Paul photo by Gage Skidmore and used via CC BY-SA 2.0 license. Both images obtained from Wikimedia Commons. If FUNimation wouldn't be inclined to sue my pants off for using Dragon Ball Z fight stills, I would have used them in a heartbeat.
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